New Additions to the Family: Japanese editions of Name of the Wind

Those of you who have been reading the blog for a long, long time might remember the early days. Back when everything was fresh and new, and I talked about all the new experiences I was having as an author. My first conventions. My first Guest of Honor gig. My first appearance on the New York Times Bestseller list. My first piece of Kvothe/Bast slashfic.

It was easy to write a lot of blogs back then. Partly because I didn’t have kids or a bunch of other projects taking up my time. But also because almost everything I was doing was new, and therefore everything was exciting.

These days, ten years later, I don’t have as many firsts as I used to. And I’m busy. And I’m a dad. And I’m older and more tired. It seems like I’m tired all the time these days.

One thing I still get excited to see is new versions of NOTW coming into print, especially if they have new covers. I used to show those off a *lot* back in the day, and I don’t know exactly when I fell out of the habit of sharing them.

Anyway. These showed up the other day:

(As always, guest starring my thumb.)

They are the new editions/translations of Japanese Name of the Wind. And I have to say, I think they look pretty badass….

(Click to Embiggen.)

The covers are *so* anime, and I love them.

Some of you who have been around for a long time might remember the first Japanese editions that came out a while back.

(Between you and me? These covers I didn’t love so much.)

These original Japanese editions have been near impossible to find for years, and if you could find them, they were crazy expensive because they’ve been out of print for a long, long while. Which is a shame. Covers aside, production quality of those books was beautiful. (Nice hardcovers with great bindings and *amazing* paper quality.)

Unfortunately, they didn’t sell very well, and the publisher canceled their contract with me abandoned the series rather than pour more funds into translating and publishing book two. This happens fairly often, but it was my first experience of this sort. It’s kinda like when someone breaks up with you, except you’ve never met them and they live in another country.

Anyway, there you go. The Japanese edition is back, new and improved.

Hope y’all are doing okay. I’ll see some of you in Texas this weekend, and others at Gencon soon….

pat

P.S. I tried for like, ten minutes to come up with a punny title for this blog along the lines of Anime of the Wind, but I couldn’t come up with a good one. (Ani-name of the Wind? Aname of the wind?) It feels like there should be something there, but I just can’t get it. If you have any better luck than I do, let me know in the comments below.

65 Comments

Huh, any idea why the publisher split the book into three parts?
To take a stab at my own question: That looks more or less the same size format and page count that most manga is published in, I guess soft cover novels get the same treatment.

Nearly all books in Japan are “manga” size because of the percentage of people who use trains/buses. It’s annoying to carry a full-size backpack on a crowded train (and there’s actually some loose etiquette on how to do so), so most people carry smaller bags. Even their text books are tiny compared to the ones we make American kids carry.

Have a deep love of good hardbacks. The kind you can oil or show off on a shelf. Didn’t understand the paperback revolution until I moved to NYC and read the hardback of The Way of Kings while standing on the Subway.

Actually practically every book gets the same format in japan, and with hard cover books they choose the jacket when they buy it. Also, I think it’s easier to carry around a book that size instead of a 2kg book, and japanese people are practical like that. It’s interesting how this kind of things work there

1. I wanted to say: I was thinking about all my personal and the political problems currently around (Trump’s and otherwise) and I got pretty depressed. Then I thought of Doors of Stone and how it’d be out someday and I cheered-up quite a bit. At least, I thought, we have that.

So I just wanted to say thank you. It was a lovely moment of peace, made all the better by the sudden (coincidental?) breeze that flew in a moment later. :) I don’t care how long it takes. I just wanted to say these books mean a lot to me.

2. These Japanese covers are beautiful! Interesting that they gave Kvothe shorter hair (which, if I recall, is more true to the books) than other editions. You’d expect modern manga artists to embrace longer hair, considering.

I’d have gone with “Namae of the Wind.” It means “Name,” apparently, but I’m unsure if that’s due to osmosis from English.

2. I’m sorry you’re tired and I hope my message above gave you a moment’s peace the way the thought of the book gave me mine. It’ll get better. Take it from an Arab; I’m the first generation in my family to not be displaced or dispossessed due to war in, well, a century.

Those are pretty. I think I need a set to sit on the shelf with my other imported manga that I can’t read because I never learned kanji and the ones I’ve bought since moving to France and read because the helped me improve my French.

Aw man, we’re doing a “Cover Olympics” thing right now on reddit to find the prettiest Name of the Wind cover, and only yesterday did I post the “qualifying” poll to whittle it down to one cover per country. Trust me to post it a day before these new covers are released.

I just asked a friend of mine who’s visiting her family in Japan this summer if she could tr to find me these books. I don’t know how to read Japanese yet, and I do own The Name of the Wind already… but I need them… And the 10th anniversary edition of the book.

My book addiction may have just gotten out of hand. Is three editions of the same book too many?

all this trying (and failing) to think of anime NOTW puns has really made me wonder how your names and laungauge translates in Japanese. Id be super curious to hear how the words I love in my own launguage would make the jump to one so fundamentally different.

Tittle is Kaze no Namae which does translate into Name of the Wind. Another interesting thing is that you now have a Japanese katakana name which is パトリック – ロスファス which basically is patorikku – rosufasu in romanji.

I love the anime version I hope I can buy it, the second edition obviously, the first is so ugly (its normal that no one bought it) and I hope that they make an anime series I’m sure it will be perfect (if you have seen anime, you will wish it) because japaneses love make Manga and Anime and they make it perfectly and also because it would be better than a movie with real characters, because there is a lot of scenes or things that being a fantastic story, it’s better make it on anime than in movies, but both of them its better ajja!!

For people looking to get these beauties, a mercantile trick I’ve used in the past is to look at Amazon in the country of interest. For example, Amazon.jp. I’ve gotten some Douglas Adams stuff that is impossible to find in the US by scrounging around on Amazon.uk. The shipping is usually a bit hurty, and the exchange rate and currency conversion charges also make it not cheap, but that’s the price for fulfilling your wishes.
I don’t see the new books there yet, but maybe they aren’t available for a little while?